Previews

Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures

Traveller's Tales readies another adventure set in the impossibly cute Lego universe.

Spiffy:

Another fantastically family-friendly game; everything is cuter in Lego.

Iffy:

Little gameplay innovation; how many Lego games does the world need?

As we sat down for our demo of Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures, we figured that we pretty much knew exactly what to expect. After what seems like interminable repackaging of the Lego Star Wars franchise, we had steeled ourselves for yet another foray into a classic tale of our childhood transmogrified into cutesy-poo building blocks. What we'd forgotten, and what Lego Indiana Jones reminded us, is that the best feature of these Lego-based titles is the uniquely humorous spin with which Traveller's Tales manages to suffuse each game.

"Throw me the Idol..."

Lego Indiana Jones basically works just like the rest of the Lego games, gameplay-wise; you jog around smashing scenery, collecting Lego bits, solving simple puzzles and platform-jumping all over the place. Of course, because this game is set in Indy's first three feature films (the as-yet-unreleased Indy flick will not be covered in this game), your primary method of attack will be through the use of Indy's infamous whip. But the whip has more uses than just snapping baddies into oblivion, because you can also use it to grab objects and pull them into Indy's grip as well as use it as a sort of grappling hook to swing across chasms (who'd have guessed?).

Although Indiana Jones is the obvious star, he'll still find help from requisite helper characters made famous in previous Lego games. Plucked from throughout Indy's legendary adventures, these helpers have unique abilities to facilitate Indy's progress through each level. We got to see Satipo (originally played by Alfred Molina in Raiders of the Lost Arc) in action as he used his excavation ability to unearth some extra Lego blocks for use in the construction of a bridge. It smacks of identical design to the Lego Star Wars games, but considering how much fun those games are we aren't terribly concerned about seeing them again.

"I Throw You the Whip..."

In two-player co-op (unfortunately not four-player, as some had hoped), these helper characters get a chance to really shine. Just as in the Lego Star Wars games, a second player can jump in at any point and get straight to the whip-cracking action. Additional helpers that LucasArts was only too happy to tease us with included Short Round and Indy's dad. Try as we might, we found it difficult to resist a Lego Sean Connery.